“It’s a shocking thing,” the store’s owner said. “There were three guys with guns dressed as clowns. They even took stuff from the customers.” Apparently, it’s part of a string of bad luck for the business. “It’s crazy, that store has been robbed four or five times over the years,” an employee of the 99 cent store next door told the Daily News. One likely reason: its total lack of functioning surveillance cameras, which they may or may not be addressing (the store was temporarily closed “for renovation” as of Tuesday).

Security cameras or no, nobody deserves to be robbed at gunpoint by a clown (or by anybody), and it would have been nice not to have my fondest memory of walking down Broadway—the time I saw a guy relaxing on a stoop at like 10pm in full clown regalia—not be permanently tainted. Anyway, probably good to keep an eye out for these guys. They’ll be easy to spot, at least.